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The Swahili people (Swahili: Waswahili, وَسوَحِيلِ) comprise mainly Bantu, Afro-Arab, and Comorian ethnic groups inhabiting the Swahili coast, an area encompassing the East African coast across southern Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, and northern Mozambique, and various archipelagos off the coast, such as Zanzibar, Lamu, and the Comoro Islands.
Swahili settlements of the East African coast date from as early as the first century CE when eastern Bantu people on the east coast of Africa began adopting the Swahili language and culture and founded settlements along the coast and islands. [1] Below is a list of Swahili settlements founded between 800 CE to 1900 CE.
Swahili is a Bantu language with heavy influence from Arabic with the word "Swahili" itself descending from the Arabic word "sahil," meaning "coast"; "Swahili" meaning "people of the coast." [ 4 ] [ 41 ] Some hold that Swahili is a completely Bantu language with only a few Arabic loanwords , while others suggest that Bantu and Arabic mixed to ...
Swahili culture is the culture of the Swahili people inhabiting the Swahili coast. This littoral area encompasses Tanzania , Kenya , and Mozambique , as well as the adjacent islands of Zanzibar and Comoros along with some parts of Malawi and the eastern part of Democratic Republic of Congo .
Swahili and English are Tanzania's official languages. [6] Swahili belongs to the Bantu branch of the Niger-Congo family. [7] The Sandawe people speak a language that may be related to the Khoe languages of Botswana and Namibia, while the language of the Hadzabe people, although it has similar click consonants, is arguably a language isolate. [8]
Arabic is the lingua franca of people who live in countries of the Arab world as well as of Arabs who live in the diaspora, particularly in Latin America (especially Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Chile and Colombia) or Western Europe (like France, Spain, Germany or Italy).
Once just an obscure island dialect of an African Bantu tongue, Swahili has evolved into Africa’s most internationally recognized language. It is peer to the few languages of the world that ...
The Swahili people are descended from Wangozi Bantu peoples that intermarried with Arab immigrants. [12] [13] The Kikuyu, who are one of the biggest tribes in Kenya, seem to have assimilated a significant number of Cushitic speakers. Evidence from their Y DNA shows that 18% of Kikuyu carry the E1b1b Y DNA. [14]